Most vehicle radios have an anti-theft feature that locks up the radio whenever the power to the car is disconnected, disabling all functionality and cutting you off from your music. The radio can then only be unlocked by entering its radio code, sometimes known as the security code or authentication key. This code is designed to be known only by the car owner, theoretically making the stolen radio useless to thieves.
However, in practice there are many reasons that a radio/stereo unit can become disconnected from power, such as when the car's battery goes dead or is running too low. Increasingly, as the computers and ECUs in modern cars become more and more complex, garages and mechanics often need to disconnect the battery just to repair or service a car. Because these garages themselves don't have the tools to decode radio codes, they return the car to its owner with the radio now locked, leaving car owners to turn to online decoding sites like us rather than be left at the mercy of the "stealership".
Here at RapidRadioCodes our business model is based around automation of radio code decoding. These automated systems are what allow us to both decode our radio codes instantly and at such a low price compared to our competitors. It means that if we are able to decode your vehicle's make, we can get you back into your tunes for less than the price of two pints (or just one if you're unfortunate enough to live down South).
Unfortunately, this does mean that we're not currently able to unlock radios for all the vehicles that we would like. However, we're always pushing boundaries and working hard to figure out algorithms for more manufacturers. If you believe you have a working algorithm or database for a particular manufacturer, feel free to get in touch with us – we may be willing to pay for these if verifiable.
The good news is that even though we can't currently offer radio codes for all manufacturers, if you've ended up on our site through the manufacturer page for your vehicle (eg. Ford), it's because we are able to generate a radio code for it, in which case the only differences between us and other decoding sites are:
We have increasingly noticed many companies in this industry employing deceptive practices to gain customers. Examples of this include: a higher TrustPilot rating on their website than can be found on their TrustPilot page; fake reviews that look like they're from TrustPilot or another independent review platform when they can't be found on any of these platforms; purchase statistics that never change, such as claiming 10 people have recently purchased a radio code no matter when you visit the site, and so on. If you do decide to use another online decoder, you should make sure they're not employing any of these practices and check their TrustPilot pages to verify their true rating.
Not only do manufacturer dealerships regularly charge much more than third-party decoding sites for radio codes (earning them the popular nickname "stealership"), they usually generate these codes from the vehicle's VIN. Unlike the radio codes we and other third-party decoding sites generate, radio codes decoded from the VIN will only work for the original radio installed to your vehicle. This means that if your car, van or truck has had another radio fitted since it was manufactured and you request a radio code from a dealer, you may end up spending much more than you need to for a radio code that won't unlock your current radio.
Here at RapidRadioCodes we pride ourselves on our ease of use and good customer experience, and that means being able to accept payment in whichever payment method is most convenient for you. This is why, in addition to supporting 10+ traditional payment methods, we also accept payment in 3 different cryptocurrencies. Here is a non-exhaustive list of the payment methods that we support:
Both Apple Pay and Google Pay have their own strict platform requirements. To see the option for Google Pay when paying for your radio code you must be using the Google Chrome browser with a card saved in Google Wallet, and to see the option for Apple Pay you must be using the Safari browser with a card saved in Apple Wallet.
Absolutely not. We help many car owners, dealers and garages unlock their radios every single day, as proven by customer reviews on our recently established Reviews.io and TrustPilot pages. In addition, you can also see what independent scam tracking sites like ScamAdviser have to say about us.
In 95% of cases the reason for a radio unlock code not working for your vehicle is due to an incorrect serial number being entered. For this reason you should always double-check that you're entering your radio's serial number correctly and in the correct format. If you're sure that you entered your serial number correctly, your radio may be one of the rare few that have been reprogrammed with a new code since being manufactured. This causes the original radio code programmed by the manufacturer to no longer work.
In these cases, the radio will need to be taken to a specialist decoder to be manually decoded, the cost for which can often be more expensive than the cost of buying a new radio. Unfortunately at this point there is nothing further we can do for radios like this. For our refund policy in this scenario, see this question.
This is a common mistake made by customers who don't understand how radio codes are entered on non-touchscreen radios – for example, if their generated radio code contains a 7, they assume they need a number 7 button on their radio to enter it. However this isn't true, because very few non-touchscreen radios have more than 6 number buttons. Instead, radio codes are entered using the numbers 1 to 4 on your radio, where each number corresponds to that digit of the radio code. If this sounds confusing, don't worry - all of our radio codes come with specific entry instructions for your radio, completely free of charge.
We are usually unable to offer refunds for working radio codes, including radio codes generated from an incorrectly entered serial number, so when entering your radio's serial number into our decoders it's important to double-check that you've entered it correctly.
If you entered your serial number correctly and your generated radio code still does not work to unlock your radio, it is our policy to provide a full refund. Although rare, this does happen (see this question for why). To help us confirm that this is the case for your radio, please contact us with a picture of your radio's serial number and a video of the provided code being entered into your radio. We require this information both to process your refund and for fraud prevention purposes. To see our complete refund policy, click here.
RapidRadioCodes™ is a small independent business based out of Sheffield, Yorkshire, in the North of the UK. Our mission is to be able to instantly generate radio unlock codes for all cars, vans and trucks, at a single fixed price that's cheaper than both the dealerships and other third-party decoding sites. Since first being established less than a year ago, we've already helped over 5,000 drivers, garages and car dealerships unlock their radios, and received hundreds of 5-star reviews across our TrustPilot and Reviews.io pages.
